Going with the flow.

There’s this special needs/mentally challenged/invertedly endowed/lugubriously entertaining/whatever the fuck the PC demigods are calling it this month (I’ll just use “retarded”) guy working in my building who worships me because I stood up for him my first year here. Some newly-made manager/fucknut wanker was just letting loose on the poor guy for stacking boxes wrong or some such bullshit, and went so far as to slap him around a bit, at which point I intervened and shoved said fucknut on his ass and told him to shut the fuck up. Long story short, the retarded guy really took a liking to me after that (I never got in trouble even though everybody in the company heard about it; the manager got shipped off to Bumfuck, Kyushu to oversee a 3-person production line for replacement AC parts a couple years ago. Ha-ha.).
Now I have a problem because my retarded friend has started expressing this affection in a physical manner – by hitting me. At first it was just a soft jab in the arm or a friendly tap on the shoulder, but homeboy must be watching Rocky movies at home or something, because he punched me in the kidney this afternoon after lunch and I doubled over, nearly crying out for my mommy.
You see, this guy’s job is to move boxes of product around the factory by handlift all day long, which requires a lot of heavy lifting and the like. He is muscular and fit; the reason he didn’t unload on the fucknut manager guy that day long ago, or any of the apparently numerous times before that, was not because he lacked the physical capability to do so. It is just that he frightens like a small child, and can be cowed into submission by tiny-pricked little bullies even half his size, because he is so sweet-natured. Even so, I know one day he might actually hurt me with an unluckily-placed strike. Yet I feel guilty doing anything to prevent this rite of male bonding.
The way I see this going is that one day he’ll break one of my ribs while playfully socking me with that big shit-eating grin on his angelic face, and then I’ll have to show him who the big dog is again. After I’m done crying, of course. I just hope nobody’s around to watch me slapping a retard at work- oh, well. Life has a funny way of running things out the way they are supposed to be, and who the fuck am I to change that?

Someone once said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I, however, prefer what my former phys.ed. teacher (who was the daughter of an army colonel) once said, “Never volunteer.” I’m not sad to report, this has been one of the basic mantras of my life.
Hopefully the aforementioned “slugger” has “some” level of comprehension if you were to gingerly let him know, a handshake would be preferred. I’d quickly start getting in the habit of shaking his hand, as his pats on the back could be a precursor to getting socked in the balls.